All Shook Up
by Teobi
Summary: Gilligan, the Professor, Ginger, and Mary Ann get that sinking feeling...


**A/N: Amaris Moon, remember what I said about 'shipping the whole damn lot'? Well, believe it or not this was intended to be a serious(ish) attempt at writing something that had a little MAG/MAP and PINGER for everyone. Just to see if it could be done. I intended to explore feelings and emotions and things like that. I really did.**

**But instead, I ended up with this. A story about falling into a hole.**

**I don't know what anyone will think of it, but I'm publishing it anyway because I was just in the mood to write something today. No research was done and nothing was Googled- I just made it all up.**

**All characters belong to the wonderful Sherwood Schwartz, without whom we wouldn't be able to conjure up all our ridiculous scenarios.**

**Like this one...**

**All Shook Up**

Due to a spell of increased volcanic activity in the Pacific, the island had been experiencing a number of earth tremors lately, and the Professor was so worried that he decided to call a meeting of the castaways. "We've grown complacent about earthquakes," he told them as they gathered around the bamboo table. "We've never suffered any serious or lasting damage. But the amount of drainage ditches we've dug over the years may well have weakened the area around the huts." He fixed the motley group with a sky blue gaze. "It may be a good idea to find somewhere else to live should the need arise."

"Should what need arise?" asked Gilligan. He was sitting with his arms folded on the table, trying to look as interested as possible while the Professor spoke. This involved lots of frowning, slow nodding and chin stroking although his mind had already wandered off about fifteen minutes ago._  
_

"To move," said the Professor.

Gilligan's eyebrows shot up. "To move? Move where?"

The Professor sighed and put his hand over his face.

"To move to wherever the Professor says to move to," said Ginger, rolling her eyes.

Gilligan fixed his disconcerting stare on the Professor. "And where's that?"

The movie star swatted the First Mate gently on the shoulder. "Gilligan, we don't know yet. Why don't you listen?"

"Gilligan, If you'd let me finish," said the Professor patiently. "We've been digging a lot of drainage ditches, thus loosening the soil. With all of the recent tremors we've been experiencing, I'm worried that a sinkhole could open up and..." he stopped, casting a worried glance at the girls.

"And what?" asked Mary Ann, half a micro second before Gilligan asked the same thing.

"And swallow the huts," the Professor finished with a rather lame smile.

Gilligan's mouth fell open. "Swallow the huts?" he squeaked. "Like...?" he lifted his hands in the air and then dropped them down, miming the huts being swallowed into a giant hole.

The Professor nodded. "I'm afraid so, Gilligan."

Gilligan's face fell. "I wish I hadn't started listening," he muttered sideways at Ginger, who nodded silently in agreement.

It was the Skipper's turn to speak. "But surely that's impossible, Professor?"

"Not as impossible as you might think, Skipper. We know from past experience that the island is riddled with underground caverns and old ammunition dumps from the war. All it would take is one shake in the wrong direction and..." the Professor did the same miming action with his hands as Gilligan had done, causing the Skipper to gulp visibly.

"Poooof," whispered Gilligan. "All our huts, gone forever."

"With us inside them," breathed Ginger. She clutched tightly onto Gilligan's arm while the First Mate studiously tried to ignore the sensation of ten long fingernails digging into his skinny bicep.

The Professor looked slowly around the group with a grave expression clouding his handsome features.

"Oh, my goodness," murmured Mrs. Howell, clutching at her pearls.

"Oh, my money," said Mr. Howell, turning a whiter shade of pale.

"And I just finished a whole week's worth of laundry," said Mary Ann, her brown eyes widening.

"Never mind the laundry, I just did my hair!" cried Ginger, releasing Gilligan's arm and protectively patting her luxuriant curls into place.

"Then you all realise the importance of finding somewhere else to live," the Professor said, gently.

Right at that moment, as if on cue, there was a low rumbling sound and the ground shook lightly beneath their feet. It was just a small tremor, barely enough to rattle the castaways' bamboo cups, but nevertheless it was enough to send them all into a mild panic, holding onto each other and exclaiming in fright as if the tremor had just broken the needle on the Richter scale with its ferocity.

"When do we start looking?" asked Mary Ann worriedly, when the tremor had passed.

"Yes, when?" asked Ginger with a new urgency in her voice as she held onto her glamorous up do.

"How about this afternoon?" the Professor suggested.

"How about _right now_?" shouted Gilligan, leaping up and tripping over his own chair, falling face down onto the sand with a thud and a muffled _'oof'_.

"Oh, Gilligan," said Ginger, resignedly, while Mary Ann rolled her eyes and the Skipper put both hands over his face and sighed.

"Professor," he muttered, "if we _do_ find somewhere else to live, can we perhaps _not tell Gilligan _when we move?!"

oOoOo

"Poor Gilligan," said Mary Ann as the Professor and the girls pushed their way through the jungle.

"Poor Gilligan nothing," said Ginger, putting her hand on the Professor's shoulder while she examined one of her heels. "I'm glad we left him behind. He's nothing but trouble."

Mary Ann winced at that description, remembering a time long ago when Gilligan had been terribly hurt by the combined disapproval of six other people. It had seemed like bullying then, and it still seemed like bullying whenever she thought about it.

"We didn't exactly leave him behind," the farm girl corrected her friend. "The Skipper had chores for him to do."

"The Skipper knew he'd cause us nothing but trouble, you mean."

"Ginger, that's not fair!"

The Professor put his hand up. "Girls, _please_. I told Gilligan he's welcome to join our expedition as soon as he's finished his chores. To be perfectly honest, I wish he had come along with us from the beginning, because nobody knows this island as well as he does."

Ginger made a small humphing sound. "Yes, if anyone's going to lead us into the quicksand patch, it'll be Gilligan."

The Professor raised his eyebrow like the schoolteacher he had been before he was rudely shipwrecked. Ginger lowered her gaze and pouted up at him through her eyelashes.

"It's true," she muttered, sulkily.

The three castaways continued to pick their way through the jungle while the Professor chopped at weeds with a machete. The girls walked along behind him in uncharacteristic silence, until Ginger sidled up next to Mary Ann and spoke in a soft, conspiratorial whisper.

"Look at him," she said behind her hand. "He's like Davy Crockett in the Wild Frontier."

Mary Ann almost choked on a sudden burst of giggles.

"All he needs is a raccoon hat," the movie star went on, arching her eyebrows as she looked the Professor up and down appreciatively.

"And a musket," said Mary Ann, joining in the approval.

"A Bowie knife," giggled Ginger.

"Ooh, yes," Mary Ann agreed. "A bear trap hanging from his belt."

"And a pair of rawhide boots that he made himself from a buffalo he killed with his bare hands," Ginger whispered, "to protect his socks." This caused Mary Ann to clamp both her hands over her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud.

The Professor stopped hacking at the foliage and turned his head three quarters of the way over his shoulder. "Okay there, girls?" he said, his lips quirking into a half smile.

"Yes, Professor, we're fine," said Ginger, innocently.

"Not disturbing you, am I?"

"No, not at all."

"Good," he smiled. "That's good. How's the searching going?"

"Oh, it's going," Ginger replied. "But we have faith in you, Professor- we know you'll find somewhere soon." The movie star took a small purse out of the neckline of her dress and extracted a clean, white handkerchief. "Would you like me to mop your brow?"

The Professor's smile broke into a grin as he joined in the teasing. "If you would be so kind," he nodded.

Ginger stepped forward and dabbed at his forehead with the handkerchief. "You're so brave," she cooed in admiration.

"Save some for me," giggled Mary Ann, skipping towards the pair.

"Girls, girls, there's enough for everybody!" the Professor chuckled, throwing up his arms in surrender.

oOoOo

Gilligan was still pouting spectacularly. "Why couldn't I go with the Professor and the girls?" he whined as he held onto the bottom of the ladder.

"Because I need you right here!" boomed the Skipper, who was nailing fresh palm fronds onto the roof of the Howells' hut.

"What for? You heard the Professor. What's the point of fixing the huts when a sinkhole is gonna open up and swallow them all?"

"I wish a sinkhole would open up and swallow _you_," the Skipper grumbled. "Just a little skinny Gilligan sized hole, that's all I ask."

"Then who would hold the ladder for you?" Gilligan shot back.

"Mr. Howell," said the Skipper, at which an incredulous voice came wafting out of the window of the hut.

"Think again, Mon Capitaine! Manual labour is no work for a Howell."

"No work is no work for a Howell," the Skipper retorted, not even caring whether it made any sense.

"But it's not fair," Gilligan went on. "The Professor said I'd be useful, 'cause I know this island like my own hand!"

The ladder wobbled precariously.

"And look how well you know your own hands," the Skipper grunted, grabbing onto a flimsy palm frond as if it would make any difference to whether he fell or not if the ladder suddenly disappeared from under him.

"I want to join the extradition," Gilligan protested.

"You'll stay here and do as you're told," the Skipper replied.

"I'm not a five year old kid!"

"You're right, Little Buddy. You're not a five year old kid." Gilligan started to grin, until the Skipper's next words wiped the smile right off his face. "You're more like a_ two_ year old kid!"

That seemed to be the last straw for Gilligan, and finally the First Mate snapped. "That's it!" he cried, letting go of the ladder and stepping back. "I resign!"

"By George! It's a mutiny!" came Mr. Howell's voice from inside the hut. "Call the Maritime Board!"

The Skipper turned and watched incredulously as Gilligan started running out of the clearing. "Gilligan!" he shouted. "You get back here right..."

"No!" Gilligan cried. "I'm joining the extradition!"

"Gilligan! Get back here right now! That's an order!"

At that very moment, another tremor rippled across the island like a series of little waves. Inside the hut, ornaments, trinkets and jewellery rattled and tinkled like wind chimes. Outside the hut the ladder wobbled and shook and the Skipper panicked and grabbed onto the roof with both hands. "Gilligaaaaaaaan!" he yelled. "Gilligaaaaaaan! I'm falling!"

The ground trembled again and the entire hut seemed to shift on its foundations. The ladder lurched sideways and the Skipper fell off the roof still clutching the palm frond. He landed heavily on his backside, knocking all the wind out of his sails. At the edge of the clearing, Gilligan turned one last time and noticed his big buddy staring at him, red faced and angry and waving his hat.

"_Gilligan! Look what you made me do!"_

"Never mind Skipper," he shouted back, "at least you landed on something big and soft!"

oOoOo

When the tremor hit, the girls and the Professor stopped what they were doing and stared at each other, suddenly serious again.

"Every time we get a tremor now, I'm going to worry we'll all be killed," said Mary Ann, worriedly.

"Please don't panic, Mary Ann," said the Professor, kindly. "It wasn't my intention to frighten anyone with my sinkhole theory."

Ginger gave him a knowing look. "Because telling us the ground might open up and swallow us whole isn't frightening at all," she said, softly.

"It probably won't," the Professor replied. "But having a contingency plan never hurt anyone. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Mary Ann nodded. "But do promise us you'll do more research on this sinkhole theory of yours, just to put our minds at rest."

"I promise I'll look into it," the Professor smiled. Then he paused, looking expectantly from one puzzled girl to the other. "Get it?"

"Get what?" asked Ginger, her brow furrowing.

"The sinkhole theory. I'll look into it." He arched his eyebrows. "Sinkhole? Look into it?"

Mary Ann and Ginger exchanged a look, and then fixed that same look on the Professor.

"I'll get back to work, shall I?" he grinned, brandishing his machete like a pioneer.

Three things happened just then. There was a distant yelling, which they all thought was just a monkey at first, but grew closer and louder and louder and closer until they realised it was Gilligan, flailing his way towards them through the jungle as if his pants were on fire.

"Oh no!" sighed Ginger. "Here comes trouble!"

Then the ground began shaking again, this time quite violently. Stones rolled and rumbled across the path in front of them. Trees creaked and strained at their roots, raining twigs and leaves onto their heads. A small crack appeared in the ground, snaking between their feet, making them jump aside. Mary Ann cried out in dismay, grabbing onto Ginger, who grabbed onto the Professor, who grabbed onto Mary Ann. And right then Gilligan burst through the bushes with a screeching yell, as though the tremor had flung him fifty feet into the air and deposited him right in the middle of their little huddle like a bowling ball.

And then a sinkhole opened up.

The girls' screams almost matched the frequency of Gilligan's high pitched yells as their feet gave way under them and they plummeted downwards.

"What were you saying about trouble, Ginger?" asked the Professor, quite mildly under the circumstances, as all four castaways sank into the freshly opened earth.

"Me and my big mouth," the movie star wailed, as they fell together as one.

And then they stopped, abruptly.

"Are we dead?" asked Gilligan with his face already contorted into the agony that he was obviously expecting.

"I don't know," said Mary Ann, quietly.

"I can't see anything," Gilligan continued.

"Why not?" asked the Professor.

"Because I've got my eyes shut," said Gilligan.

Slowly, all four castaways opened their eyes. The ground had stopped shaking. The rumbling was over. The trees stood deathly still, apart from a few loose leaves that continued to flutter down. Birds resumed chirping, butterflies resumed fluttering. But the castaways were stuck fast, up to their ribs in the hole that had opened up right where they stood.

"I guess the Skipper got his wish," sighed Gilligan.

"His wish?" asked Mary Ann.

"Yeah. He wished for a sinkhole to open up and swallow me."

Ginger groaned. "Gilligan! Why did you have to bring your stupid sinkhole _here_?"

The First Mate started wailing again. "I didn't know it was really gonna happen, Ginger!"

The Professor shushed loudly to calm the squabbling duo. "Let's regroup and take stock of the situation," he said, with his air of authority back in place.

The other three stared at him.

"In case you hadn't noticed," said Ginger, "we are already 'grouped'- perhaps a little more than we ought to be."

It was true. The four castaways were wedged in tighter than sardines in a can.

"I doubt you could get a sheet of paper between any of us," the movie star added, unnecessarily.

"We are a little... close together," said Mary Ann, blushing slightly as she inadvertently caught Gilligan's eye.

"Yes, well, I'm sure we can find a way out as long as we stay calm and don't panic," said the Professor, but no sooner had he finished speaking than Ginger squealed in panic, bumping up against the other castaways.

"There's something in the hole with us!" she cried, plaintively. "Something just touched me! A spider! A snake! Aaah!"

Gilligan, whose arms were pinned down against his sides, winced suddenly. "Ow, Ginger! That's my hand!" he yelled as his knuckles were crushed between Ginger's derriere and the side of the hole.

"Your hand?" Ginger's eyes flew open. "Gilligan! How dare you! Get your hand off of my... you know where!"

"Believe me Ginger, if I could, I would," the First Mate protested loudly. "But I can't! I can't move my arms!"

Mary Ann piped up suddenly and also began squirming. "Ow! Ow! something just touched me, too!"

"That's my _other_ hand," Gilligan moaned, shamefacedly.

"But, if that's your hand there, then what just touched me on the other side?" Mary Ann squeaked.

"I'm afraid that's _my_ hand," the Professor confessed, his neck turning scarlet.

Mary Ann stared at him. "Then where's _your_ other hand?"

Ginger cleared her throat audibly.

"I see," said Mary Ann as the other three went very quiet and tried not to make eye contact with each other. "Well, this is a fine mess we're in, isn't it?"

"At least _our_ hands are free, Mary Ann," said Ginger, as primly as she could.

"I was trying to protect my face," said Mary Ann. "I know I don't have a lot of assets, but I consider that to be one of them."

"I was trying to protect my hair," said Ginger. "I'd need at least two more pairs of arms if I wanted to protect _my_ assets."

Gilligan was trying hard not to look at or anywhere near Ginger's cleavage, but it was proving difficult for any of them not to look at Ginger's cleavage since it was right there under their noses. "All I know is, I need to get my assets out of this hole," he whimpered.

"Indeed," mused the Professor, thoughtfully.

Silence descended on the little group of wedged in castaways as everyone felt heat creep into their faces at their enforced proximity to each other and the fact that the Professor's and Gilligan's hands were _where they were_. Mary Ann suddenly wished that she wasn't wearing her short shorts, but at the same time, she was starting to feel vaguely ... well, she didn't want to go quite so far as to say _aroused_, but... that was one way of putting it. The Professor's hand was on her left side and Gilligan's hand was on her right side. Meanwhile, it was the opposite way around for Ginger. The girls looked at each other and bit their lips and looked away, trying to act as though this sort of thing happened all the time.

Ginger squirmed again, feeling Gilligan's fingers pressing into her through the thin material of her gown. The First Mate drove her to distraction at times but when all was said and done he was still a man, and his hand on her behind was making her feel all sorts of conflicting emotions. She glanced at his face while he wasn't looking. She noticed how long his eyelashes were, and how his eyes were the colour of the deep ocean, whereas the Professor's were more like the sky. Then Gilligan looked at her and she blushed and dropped her gaze.

"Mary Ann," said the Professor after a moment. "Why do you think you don't have many assets? You have many fine assets that any young woman would be proud to have."

The Kansan farm girl smiled with sheer delight. "Why thank you, Professor! That's very kind of you to say so!"

"Oh, please," Ginger muttered under her breath. "That was cornier than Iowa."

"You have many fine assets too, Ginger," the Professor continued, turning his attentions to the fiery redhead.

Ginger brightened immediately. "Why, thank you for noticing, Professor!" she beamed, coquettishly.

"Difficult not to," he replied, drolly.

Meanwhile, Gilligan was trying for all the world to pretend he wasn't there at all, even though every nerve ending in his body was telling him otherwise. "I wish I'd stayed back at the huts with the Skipper," he sighed. "All I wanted to do was join the extradition."

Mary Ann giggled, trying to catch his eye. "The extradition?"

"Yeah. To help us find a new home."

"You mean the expedition," she laughed.

"Yeah, that too," he nodded. "I only wanted to go on an adventure. I sure didn't think I'd end up like _this_." He wriggled like a worm in the hole and his hand accidentally rubbed up hard against Mary Ann's posterior.

Mary Ann went giddy as an unexpected thrill coursed through her. "_This_ is kind of an adventure," she murmured, softly. "Don't you think?" She blinked up at him shyly and he swallowed.

"I don't know what to think," he stammered.

Another awkward silence descended until Mary Ann attempted to bring the conversation back around to the important issue of why they were there to begin with.

"Professor," she began, casually.

"Yes?" The Professor's response was a little too quick, as though he had been waiting and waiting for Mary Ann to grace him with a question. Ginger coughed, politely but pointedly.

"Supposing the whole island is full of holes?" said Mary Ann. "Supposing that wherever we move to, we'll be in the same predicament, or worse? I mean, there's the volcano, and the other side of the island is still very wild. What if we're already in the safest place there is?"

"Anywhere would be safer than this," muttered Gilligan, his cheeks burning red.

"Not this hole, Gilligan, I mean where our huts are." Mary Ann smiled at her poor friend's look of total embarrassment. "Surely all we'd need to do is shore up our drainage ditches. It's not as if we've been tunnelling all over the place like gophers for four years."

"It could be that I've been worrying too much," the Professor admitted.

"Yeah, like the time you thought the island was sinking when it wasn't," said Gilligan, laughing happily until three pairs of eyes fixed him with stern looks. "Okay, that one was my fault," he conceded.

"Besides, the tremors will stop once the volcanic activity has calmed down," Mary Ann continued. "And then we'll be back to normal and all of this will be forgotten about."

Now it was Mary Ann's turn to have three pairs of eyes fixed on her.

"This is going to be pretty hard to forget about, Mary Ann," said Ginger.

Mary Ann blushed and went quiet, knowing that Ginger was right and wishing that the Professor's and Gilligan's hands weren't cupped quite so snugly around her rear end.

Gilligan screwed his face up until the Professor asked him what he was doing.

"I'm wishing for another earthquake," he replied. "It can swallow me up or spit me out, I don't care which. As long as I don't have to keep looking at Ginger's assets!"

"Gilligan!" Ginger gave a wounded cry which made her bosom heave all the more under Gilligan's nose. "That's an awful thing to say!"

Gilligan shook his head side to side. "I didn't mean it that way," he insisted. "I just need to get out of here, that's all. 'Cause either the ground's burning up, or I am!"

"It is very warm," Mary Ann agreed, nodding emphatically.

"Professor, maybe we're on top of a hot water spring," Gilligan said, hopefully. "Maybe it'll blow us out like a geyser."

"But that could kill us," the Professor said, frowning.

"At least we'd be out of this hole!"

"And up in a tree," said Ginger, mournfully. "Think what that would do to my hair!"

"You'd be dead though, so it wouldn't matter."

"_You'll_ be dead when we get out of here, Gilligan!"

"Oh Ginger, leave Gilligan alone," Mary Ann butted in. "He's not doing anything to you!"

"Really, Mary Ann? I suppose it's Casper the Friendly Ghost who has his hand on my...?"

"He has his hand on mine too, Ginger. I don't see why you need to make such a big thing of it."

Gilligan squeaked, squirmed and went bright red. "Leave me out of this," he muttered, helplessly.

"Gilligan, if you were any closer I'd be able to see what you had for lunch," Ginger muttered.

"I haven't had my lunch yet," Gilligan pouted.

"Breakfast, then."

"Banana pancakes," Gilligan answered brusquely. "There, I saved you the trouble."

"Please, Ginger, Gilligan," said the Professor, trying hard not to lose his patience. "Please be quiet just for a few moments and let me think about how we're going to get out of this predicament."

"Sorry, Professor," said Ginger, obediently falling silent.

"If Ginger breathed in we'd have some extra space," said Gilligan, as stubbornly determined as ever to have the last word.

Ginger fixed him with a steely glare but all he did was tilt his head on one side and grin at her. Meanwhile, the Professor tried hard to concentrate but was finding it rather difficult with both of his hands pressed up against the firm flanks of Ginger and Mary Ann. Briefly the saying, '_every cloud has a silver lining_' popped into his head, but he shook it off with a small, secret smile. That was no way to think about his friends- his delightful, _curvy_ friends, even if it was true!

In the end, it didn't matter how hard the Professor looked as though he was trying to concentrate, because finally the Skipper turned up, a one man rescue party pushing his way through the jungle like a bulldozer.

"Well, well, what have we here?" the big man grinned, standing on the edge of the hole and peering down into their embarrassed faces.

"Only that sinkhole that you wished for," said Gilligan, fixing his friend with a baleful eye.

The Skipper looked solemnly up at the sky. "Just when I thought He had stopped listening to me," he crooned. "Thank you, Big Fella." Then he gave the OK sign with thumb and forefinger to the clouds.

"In case you hadn't noticed, there are four of us in here," said Ginger, sulkily. "Did you intend for all of us to get caught?"

"The Lord moves in mysterious ways," the Skipper said with a twinkle.

"Then maybe the Lord can move us out of here, before Casper gets his fingers broken."

"Casper?"

"She means me," said Gilligan. "Because my hand is on her...mmf!" He was cut off by Ginger placing her hand firmly over his mouth.

The Skipper crouched down and set about hauling the castaways out of the hole. "You know, Professor, I wasn't sure about all this sinkhole nonsense," he said cheerily as he pulled Mary Ann out from between Gilligan and the Professor as though she weighed no more than a feather. "I thought you were just trying to scare us, as usual. But that last tremor was a doozy!"

With Mary Ann out of the hole, the others were finally able to climb out themselves- although Skipper gallantly gave Ginger a hand as she was still wearing her high heels and because she was a girl and he was a gentleman, and because he never needed any excuse to show Ginger some chivalry.

"What do you mean, 'as usual'?" said the Professor, brushing sand and dirt off his pants. "The dangers of sinkholes are real!"

"But that was the strongest tremor so far, and all it did was break a couple of Mrs. Howell's prized ornaments. I really don't think we have anything to worry about, Professor. I think we're already in the safest place there is."

"That's what Mary Ann said," the Professor mused, raking leaves out of his hair. "And Mary Ann always thinks things through."

Ginger rolled her eyes behind his back, but said nothing.

"All we need to do is keep our existing drainage ditches maintained and not dig any more," the Skipper continued. "I can easily put Gilligan to work on that."

"Thanks a lot," muttered Gilligan.

"I'll help you, Gilligan," offered Mary Ann, touching his arm shyly.

"You dont have to," Gilligan replied, blushing.

"But I want to."

"Oh." The First Mate nervously shuffled his feet in the sand. "Okay, then."

"Good," said Mary Ann, smiling at him like she used to in the early days. "I reckon it'll be fun, don't you?"

"Drainage ditches?" Gilligan screwed up his face in mild repugnance. "If you say so, Mary Ann!"

All five castaways began making their way back to camp. Skipper led the way, talking loudly to anyone who would listen about earthquakes and old sailor's superstitions and drainage ditches and wondering 'how on earth did a sinkhole manage to open up right under their feet like that?!' Mary Ann and Gilligan followed a little way behind, neither of them realising that they were still almost as physically close together as they had been when they were stuck in the hole- only this time Gilligan resolutely kept his hands out of the way as the soil streaked farm girl walked along happily beside him.

Ginger and the Professor brought up the rear of the little group, with Ginger walking a little more slowly because one of her heels had snapped off and she was carrying her shoes in one hand while she picked her way along, trying not to step on sticks or stones in her bare feet.

"What an adventure that was," she said, wryly. "Of course, everything was going smoothly until Gilligan showed up."

"Oh, come now, Ginger, I know you don't think that badly of Gilligan," the Professor smiled. "After all, he did just make the earth move for us!"

Ginger shook her head in amusement. "It's a shame your bad jokes didn't fall into a hole," she teased, nudging the Professor in the arm.

And in this way, the five cheerful castaways ambled back to their beloved huts to rejoin the Howells.

The End


End file.
